The Annotated Passover Haggadah ed. by Zev Garber and Kenneth Hanson

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Annotated Passover Haggadah ed. by Zev Garber and Kenneth Hanson Joshua Schwartz zev garber and kenneth hanson (eds.), The Annotated Passover Haggadah (Denver, CO: Global Center for Religious Research, 2021). Pp. xiv + 350. Paper $14.99. Both Judaism and Christianity have roots in Passover, but Jews and Christians think about and relate to the festival differently. For Jews it is usually a festival of freedom from slavery, recalling the Exodus from Egypt as well as a time of introspection about that freedom. It was and is a family festival but also recalls its pilgrimage nature in the past. For Christians, it is associated with the last week in the life of Jesus in Jerusalem. In spite of these differences, there are some points of possible intersection between Jewish and Christian Passover beliefs and practices. One of these, for example, was the Passover seder and recitation of the haggadah, and the Last Supper of Jesus, whether the Last Supper was or was not actually a Passover seder. Seder and Last Supper was the topic of a session of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew at the SBL conference in 2018 and this served as the impetus for this book. The editors, Zev Garber, an Orthodox Jew by birth and practice and Kenneth Hanson, an Evangelical Christian by birth and a Conservative Jew by conversion, have long been involved in ecumenical academic dialogue, making Judaism and Christianity comprehensible to Jews and Christians, pointing out the elements and beliefs common to both religions as well as those that are different. The book is divided into two parts. The first part is the actual Passover haggadah with a Hebrew text, English translation, and a short paragraph commentary. In spite of the fact that there have been numerous translations and commentaries in the last few years, the editors provide in their brief commentary important analytical, philosophical, and theological [End Page 521] perspectives, especially on long overlooked sections of the haggadah. Explanatory notes stress Jewish values and concepts but also those that are intrinsically universal, uniting an assortment of religious traditions and practices. The backdrop in this part is basically in keeping with traditional Jewish law and custom. Interspersed between text and commentary are a number of excursuses by the editors on matters directly relevant to the haggadah, such as the moral sense of the ten plagues (G.), the redemption of the firstborn (G.) and the image of Elijah (H.) the prophet, invited into the seder. The final excursus by an editor (H.) is a brief (pp. 134–43) but brilliant discussion of the Last Supper of Jesus, as to whether it existed or had a connection to the Passover meal, and whether eucharistic elements were components of the Passover meal. Was the Last Supper a seder or a Pauline-inspired messianic banquet? The second part of the book is composed of seventeen "stand-alone" essays on biblical, historical, historical-philosophical, theological, liturgical, anthropological, and aesthetic elements of Passover and the haggadah impacting Judaism and Christianity. The essays on Judaism are from representatives of different branches of Judaism and from different gender frames of reference, touching on sometimes similar topics from a vast array of perspectives. The essays are the following: "Eucharist and Seder: What Should the Simple Scholar Say?," by Peter Zaas; "Inserting Shoah at the Traditional Passover Seder: Interpreting Anew the Five Cups, and What Would Jesus Say?," by Zev Garber; "Sample Haggadot and Sedarim," by Nathan Harpaz; "Romaniote and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) Passover Haggadah: Excerpts and Related Customs," by Yitzchak Kerem; "A Chassidisher Pesach: Passover Traditions and Insights from Chassidic Perspectives," by Diane Mizrahi; "Why Is This Haggadah Different? Haggadot in the Non-orthodox Movements," by Annette Boeckler; "Re-arranging Things at the Table for an Isolated and Peculiar Jewish Community at the Bottom of the World," by Norman Simms; "Select Haggadah and Exodus Topics," by William Krieger; "Exodus to Leviticus to Haggadah: The Dynamism of Torahistic Law," by Jonathan Arnold, Esq.; "The Memory of God and the Blindness of Humanity: The Four Children," by Leonard Greenspoon; "The Dawn of the Jewish Woman: Marginalization, Liberation, and the Exodus," by Roberta Sabbath; "Haggadah, Shoah, and the Exigency of the Holy...